Clothing and Goggles
It has been said (by the present-day explorer Ranulph Fiennes amongst others) that Scott's team was appropriately dressed for man-hauling in their woolen and wind-proof clothing, and as Amundsen was skiing it was appropriate he wore furs. Skiing at the pace of a dog team is a strenuous activity. Yet Amundsen never complained about the clothing being too hot. That is because the furs are worn loose so air circulates and sweat evaporates. Scott's team, on the other hand, made regular complaints about the cold.
Amundsen's team did initially have problems with their boots. However, the depot-laying trips of January and February 1911 and an abortive departure to the South Pole on 8 September 1911 allowed changes to be made before it was too late.
Scott's team suffered regularly from snow blindness and sometimes this affected over half the team at any one time. By contrast, there was no recorded case during the whole of Amundsen's expedition. On the return journey, Amundsen's team rested during the "day" (while the sun was in front of them) and traveled during the "night" (while the sun was behind them) to minimize the effects of snow blindness.
Read more about this topic: Comparison Of The Amundsen And Scott Expeditions
Famous quotes containing the word clothing:
“In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, there were men with carts busily collecting the seaweed which the storm had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they were often obliged to separate fragments of clothing from it, and they might at any moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might, they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)